Returning Home
by tukct81
Summary: AU finale story. What if Klaus couldn't reach Mystic Falls in time? With few options left, Elena must decide whether keeping Damon alive is worth violating his free will. But the cure has supernatural consequences no one could have forseen. Elena is left to wonder whether she was doomed to lose Damon either way.


**Hello readers, remember me? I'm the awful liar who kept saying I'd post a new story soon. Cut to almost four months later, and I finally kept my promise. I hope some of you out there are still interested in my quirky brand of storytelling. I have missed sharing the bizarre workings of my brain with all of you.**

**Now I should preface this chapter by saying that I haven't read many other fanfictions about the finale, so I don't know if anyone else has written a similar story. I'm crossing my fingers, toes, and all other appendages that this actually comes out as moderately original. It picks up just when Ric is calling Stefan to ask whether he should force feed Damon the cure, and it completely diverts from there. This won't follow hardly any of the rest of the finale, so be warned about that. Otherwise I hope you all enjoy this first chapter, and please, please, please review to let me know what you think. **

**P.S. Thank you to my favorite sounding board Cher Sue for your help and your kicking. And for all my readers who haven't, go check out everything she has ever written.**

"Stupid, frustrating, infuriating, pain in the ass," I curse inwardly. These are only a few of the choice words I have reserved for my mental patient of a boyfriend whose currently dying of stubbornness, because he'd be the first person to have that listed as their official cause of death. A magical lifesaving cure is offered on a silver platter, practically gift wrapped with candy and a stripper, and he's too damn foolish to take it. Hell, if I thought it would impact his decision, I'd wrap the freaking cure in candy and play the role of stripper myself.

Unfortunately Damon is currently in fierce competition with a mule to be the future mascot of the pigheaded, and the barnyard animal is way out of its league. Damon's absolute aversion to accepting anyone's help is essentially his trademark and quite possibly his least attractive trait. The biggest character flaw Damon and I have in common and it's what makes me want to punch him in the face twenty times a day. Once again, I'm left wondering where my taste in men went horribly wrong.

It's not like I didn't have enough choices. As a human, I had the option of falling for the nice human quarterback who wanted to marry me and raise his little blonde babies. But in a move that I find terribly unfair, my heart only goes all aflutter for a certain doofus who values his own life less than my humanity. If he lives long enough for us to have a real conversation, we're gonna have a talk about priorities, and how he should get some better ones.

But none of that solves my current problem of Damon refusing to take the cure. As I listen in on Ric and Stefan's conversation, I groan inwardly at the return of the always contentious free will debate. Stefan is gazing at me helplessly. He's torn between what he wants to do and what he thinks is right. Luckily I don't have that problem. For me it's simple, always has been. Damon's dying, and I don't know how to live in a world without him in it. So in a fit of hypocritical self-righteousness, I snatch the phone from Stefan and start yelling loud enough for my voice to pierce through Damon's thick skull and possibly the sound barrier.

However my vocal projection doesn't exactly endear me to the graduation guests, especially not the 80 year old grandmother shooting me death glares as she tries to figure out the vast wonder that is her digital camera, likely a present from a tech savvy grand child who never figured out that she doesn't know how to work it. But after an icy stare of my own that could refreeze the polar ice caps, she resumes cursing technology, and my focus is back on the aforementioned doofus.

"You wanted me to show some human emotion." I point out. My voice, now dialed down to a whisper, becomes choked with those pesky feelings that I switched off my humanity trying to avoid. "You asked me to feel, and now that I'm back to crying at really sad puppy commercials, you're just going to give up," I murmur softly, trying to hold onto my anger so I don't ruin this tirade with pitiful tears. "I'm sorry but I don't accept that. If you want to leave me all alone, you're going to have to face me while you do it." I don't even wait for his excuse or rationalization, because it'll only serve to further piss me off. Once I punch the end button, much harder than was necessary, the group falls deathly silent, and not even the town chatterbox has anything left to say.

Because someone has to, Stefan's the first one to break the awkwardness as he offers to accompany me to what he imagines will be Damon's deathbed. And he's a bit thrown when I shake my head. "No," I declare emphatically, not even flinching at the sight of Stefan's pained expression, and leaving no room for further debate. "If Damon's going to blame someone, it should be me, no need for both of us to play the bad guy," I explain rationally. Stefan's eyes spark with understanding, because he's seen this type of behavior before, just not from me.

I'm about to do something really selfish that goes against everything I thought I believed in, and there isn't a person around me who can cast stones at that decision. This year we've all made that choice once or twice. Stefan became a ripper to save Damon, Bonnie defied nature to try to stop me from transitioning, Caroline killed 12 witches to save Bonnie, and I was about to risk the entire town's safety to save my boyfriend. No matter how we like to see ourselves when we look in the mirror, we aren't heroes, and if Damon lives to see tomorrow, maybe that's okay.

In the midst of my existential crisis, Stefan exudes awkwardness, and clearly something troubles his mind. Stefan addresses the obvious, because it has to be said. "You know he wouldn't want this?" He reminds me gently, trying to come off as concerned and not overly judgmental.

I avoid his gaze and the question, because I already know the answer. And I'm not in the mood to rehash my speech about how what Damon would want and what we should do are still not the same thing. In a moment of nostalgia, I'm reminded of a time when the roles between Damon and I were reversed, and I barely recognize the innocent young girl from my memory.

It's strange to think it's only been a year since Damon force fed me his blood to save my life, now that the roles are so dramatically opposite I see how naïve I must have sounded. Back then I claimed that Damon didn't know what love was if he couldn't respect my decision to risk my life. It's tragic that only in retrospect do I realize that _I_ was the one who didn't understand. Loving someone so completely is more complicated than black or white. Love is selfish _and _selfless. It is a confusing combination of both, and Damon and I are still teaching each other the balance between the two every day. Even if this is the most selfish thing I've ever done, I'm not prepared to give up a lifetime worth of tomorrows with the man that I love. So without another look towards my anxious friends, I head off to give my lovable idiot a piece of my mind.

And when I arrive all full of anger and determination, my resolve is easily tested as I see Ric hovering over his best friend using his own jacket to dab Damon's forehead. I almost hate to break up the moment, but they quickly spot me and pretend that they weren't acting all bromancey a second ago. In an effort to distract me, Damon flashes a weak smile in between coughing fits, and I rush over to his side. The precious cure almost is forgotten until I notice Ric inconspicuously place it at my side. Taking a hint, my former guardian chooses to leave his best buddy in my care, and I'm grateful for the privacy.

As I study Damon lying helplessly on the ground, I'm overwhelmed with what I have to do. In a few minutes, he's gonna hate me, and a part of me wants to savor these last few minutes of unpolluted adoration that he feels for me. And because Damon is physically incapable of letting our moments together get too sappy, he turns on the sarcasm and the deflection, because his imminent death is apparently not up for discussion.

"You know what I hate?" Damon asks casually, like he was about to complain about traffic or the uncharacteristically warm weather. "I hate that all these life and death scenarios never leave time for a goodbye quickie," he responds, entirely serious. His deadpan delivery makes me laugh despite myself and despite the situation. Damon smirks smugly at his accomplishment, and then he pushes his luck further. "I mean I've got all this sympathy flowing my way, but I'm all sticky and gross, and nowhere near my usual level of hotness."

"Glad to know it hasn't affected your ego," I snark right back, figuring if he can avoid the elephant in the room so can I. "And don't forget you had every chance to fully appreciate my body back when you were pretty and less sweaty."

This time he smiles fondly as we each reminisce about the night that brought us together, and that one perfect morning when we were both purely happy. But Damon's demeanor changes marginally as his fingers graze the knuckles on my hand reverently. "It would never be enough," he states regretfully. His eyes glisten in the sunlight as he tries to hide the tears forming in them. "But it's probably for the best," he brushes off coolly, the change abrupt and unwelcome, "one last pity fuck is more than even my ego could take."

He treats it like a joke, like we're both supposed to laugh at the fact that he doesn't think any of this was real. Damon tries to play the comedian even as he's dying, because he doesn't want me to feel guilty once he's gone. His lack of self-worth makes me want to write sonnets to his courage, to his strength, and to the depth of his heart. I want to spend forever loving him, because no one's ever done it right. With every drop of love I've ever felt for him, I kiss him more tenderly than I ever have, probably more than anyone ever has. Against his cheek, I whisper, "It was never pity."

He recoils slightly and hangs his head to distance himself from me. "You don't have to play Mother Theresa to the dying guy. It's okay."

"Damon. . ." I try to rebut, but he swiftly cuts me off.

"No, it's really alright. You don't have to feel bad, and you don't have to shed any useless tears once I'm gone," Damon assures me. He seems so sure, so certain that mourning him would be a pointless exercise in futility. His attitude only makes me angrier, not at him for once, but at all the people over the years that made Damon feel worthless. I want to pull up a list of _their_ sins so I can determine what right they have judge him. And my desire to punish is overridden only by my need to set Damon straight once and for all.

"My tears aren't useless, Damon," I plead with him tirelessly. "_You're_ not useless."

"Elena, stop," he begs desperately. The sentimentality wears thin on his steel metal plate of armor. "You don't have to do this, even if you're sad, even if you'll miss me. You don't need to mourn me, because I don't regret it." His words sound so familiar as the echoes of a similar sentiment ring in my ears. But we aren't in his bedroom this time, and for once I can be the one to save _him_ from himself. I reach for the cure, but Damon grabs my hand with more words to impart before he's done. "Last year I told you all the pain in my life was worth it because I met you, because I loved you, and if I'm about to join Ric in an eternity of ghostly people watching, I need you to know that it's _still_ worth it. Whether you're human, vampire, or alien, _you're_ still worth it. So please don't cry, because I wouldn't change a single second that I spent with you."

"Neither would I," I answer back solemnly. Damon's face crinkles with worry and sympathy, but mostly love. By now, any hopes of keeping it together are a distant memory. The tears fall effortlessly down my face with no sign of stopping. As I wipe away the mini waterfall cascading down my cheeks, I grow bolder, regaining that bit of anger at this whole messed up situation.

"I hate you for making me do this," I state cryptically. "I hate you for putting me in this position, for being so stubborn, but making me love," I choke out tearfully, "I think I blame you for that most of all."

He tries to stop me, tries to keep the words from leaving my mouth even after they're already gone, because Damon wouldn't be who he is without his skepticism, without his doubts. I silence them all with a finger placed gingerly against his lips pleading him to let me say my peace.

"I'm not telling you this because you're dying," I promise him sincerely. "I'm telling you because you're not." My words don't register in his disease ridden brain. Damon probably assumes this is my last bit of naïve optimism rearing its ugly head, and he dismisses it. Little does he know that I've got his salvation in the palm of my hand, and I'll be glad to be rid of this cursed thing once and for all.

The so called cure that we all risked everything for was meaningless in the end. These few drops of blood cost me more than I could have imagined. I lost my brother, my humanity, and my sense of self. All of that was sacrificed in the name of becoming human. One person that I love already died for this cure, and now Damon's dying for it as well. The one truth that everyone seems to miss is that humanity means nothing if you end up all alone.

So with a bit of courage, I tilt his chin up so that his eyes are locked with mine and I have his undivided attention. "I love you," I declare unashamedly, "for now, for always, until the day I die and beyond it. I choose you."

Shock, joy, and awe are only a few emotions that encompass Damon's reaction to the confession he's waited his whole life to hear. Staring at one of the few genuine smiles I've ever seen grace Damon's far too tortured features, I realize that smiles are more beautiful, joy is more powerful on those that have known true misery. Damon's happiness is like a miracle created just for me, or just by me, and I cherish it more than he knows.

He struggles to even take shallows breaths as he tells me, "We really do have sucky timing. So because I'll probably never get another chance, I need you to know that I always . . ."

"I know," I finish for him, not needing another confession to tell me what I what I always knew in my heart to be true. "And that's how I know that you'll forgive me."

The pieces come together quickly after that. He sees me pick up the vial of blood from the ground, and I can see him squirm uselessly away from me. I use my vampire strength to pin his shoulders to the rock he's been leaning against. With a twinge of regret, I force his jaw open and shove the cure down his throat. I nearly dislocate his jaw trying to make sure he swallows it, but once I see him gag over the offending substance, I know there's no turning back.

I try to ignore the betrayal painted across Damon's face, and I murmur comforting words back to him, promising him that this will all be over soon. Just as he's about to lose consciousness, I confess softly. "I'm sorry that I was too selfish to let you go." And with that his eyes shut peacefully.

As he lies motionlessly in my arms, I cling tightly to his hand waiting for him to wake up. To pass the time, I torture myself picturing all the ways Damon's going to hate me when he remembers what I did to him. He equated mortality as a fate worse than death, and I'm the one who subjected him to it. Suffice it to say, our upcoming fights will be legendary. But I cling to the hope that he can't stay mad at me forever, and I can always buy his forgiveness with elaborately cooked meals, that other people would have to prepare so his first experience as a human isn't food poisoning. And I could dress up real special in whatever lingerie he wants, for at least a month. Surely his pouting over being human can't last much longer than that. And then I imagine how I'll cope if he _never_ forgives me. I shudder at the thought.

Fortunately my paranoid mind isn't allowed to run amok anymore as Damon's eyes start to flutter open. My first glimpse of him produces a huge sigh of relief. His expression is so simple, so calm, and unaffected. If anything, Damon looks almost happy. I burst out in a fit of happy tears fling my arms around his neck in a near crushing embrace. "Don't you ever scare me like that," I order all bossy like. "I thought I'd never see you again," I admit with tired relief.

Everything was perfect . . . for about 15 seconds, until the first word out of my boyfriend's mouth makes my blood run cold. With pure innocence, Damon, _my_ Damon breathes out, "Katherine," with the same reverence that he once used to speak my name. And with one word, I know that alive or dead, I've lost Damon either way.

**As Always Please Read and Review**

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